ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM
The Delaware Contemporary focuses on assisting career growth of new and emerging artists with an emphasis on providing the ARC Residency Program to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in the Great Arc region of Delaware. We are driven to provide equitable access to career development for underserved populations and strive to diversify the nonprofit and museum industries through this opportunity. To ensure equity, the selection process works with a unique set of arts professionals.
As part of the program, ARC residents engage with their fellow residents, the community of Studios@ artists, TDC staff, and public outreach projects. Residents will work toward a cumulative exhibition in The Delaware Contemporary's main galleries each summer.
Chase Dougherty
Gretchen Hupfel Curator of Contemporary Art
“We really want to be a platform and a resource for those who need a studio space and provide opportunities for professional development.”
Nicholas Callaway
2021-22 Artist-in-Residence
“The Residency has allowed me a lot of freedom to expand and allow myself to work in ways that I previously would not have.”
ARC 25 COHORT
The Delaware Contemporary is pleased to announce our four accepted artists for the 2024-2025 Artist-In-Residence program: Giraldo Gonzalez, Oscar De Paz, Tracy Tse, Lucy West. These artists were selected for a fully-funded residency program to occupy a shared studio, receive one-to-one mentorship, and participate in professional development programming. The ARC 25 jurors include current communications and marketing manager and and former Artist-in-Residence, Shefon Taylor, and DCAD professor Dr. Casey Smith.
ARC 24 COHORT
The Delaware Contemporary is pleased to announce our four accepted artists for the 2023/24 Artist-In-Residence program (ARC 24): Noel Cross, Cony Madariaga, Nasir Young, and Zifeng Zang. These artists were selected for a fully-funded residency program to occupy a shared studio, receive one-to-one mentorship, and participate in professional development programming. The ARC 24 jurors include Studios@ artist and former Artist-in-Residence, Stephanie Boateng, and Vox Populi member artist and arts educator Natalie Hijinx.
Noel Cross
Noel Cross is a contemporary painter and photographer from New Jersey. As a young artist Cross attended Studio Incamminati Atelier in Philadelphia, PA. She then went on to receive her BA from Rutgers University before completing her MFA at the University of Delaware. Her most recent works are grounded in research exploring American commodity culture, the investigation of collective cultural memory and challenging learned assumptions. The work honors the tradition of painting as an enduring cultural practice while exploring the curiosity of play. As pictorial competition redefines our contemporary visual experience the work invites you to be fascinated by the act of looking.
Cony Madariaga
Constanza Madariaga, Also known as Cony Madariaga, is a Delaware-based Artist, Born in Santiago Chile. She has been in love with Art since she was a child and creating has been her therapy and safe space to express herself throughout her lifetime. Being able to have access to art classes in middle school and highschool allowed her to explore different mediums and techniques. Although she did not continue her formal education in Arts, she has always gravitated to it, and always made a space in her life to be able to create. In 2019 she had her first exhibition, since then she has participated in a number of exhibitions in Delaware and surrounding cities including the 2023 Artist Fellowship through the Delaware Divisions of the Arts.
Nasir Young
Nasir Young received his BFA from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art. In 2020 he was awarded The Raymond D. & Estelle Rubens Travel Scholarship to go to London. Young was awarded an illuminate arts grant in 2021 and 2022, he was the Second place winner of the Philadelphia Sketch Club 158th exhibition of small oils, and a 2022 Da Vinci Art Alliance Resident. Nasir’s primary source of imagery is the everyday scenes of urban inner city life. He has had multiple group shows in Philadelphia, and online exhibitions.
Zifeng Zang
Zifeng Zang is an accomplished artist with a wealth of education and experience in the field. Her love for art began at a young age which grew as she received formal education, including earning dual BFA degrees from Jilin University in China and West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Her career experience includes serving as a senior graphic designer and brand manager at 4A Advertising Agencies and tech giants in China, where she honed her skills in creating imagery characters and advertisement scripts using digital tools. Despite this, she always felt drawn to the traditional art of painting. This led her to pursue further education in the field and to study painting in the US, where she is now focused on developing her favorite abstract style, infused with her personal experiences and unique perspective.
2022-23 ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE RECIPIENTS
The Delaware Contemporary is pleased to announce our four accepted artists for the 2022/2023 onsite Artist-In-Residence program. These artists were selected for a year-long residency program to occupy a fully-funded, shared studio. Artists-In-Residence will engage with their fellow cohort of residents, the community of Studios@ artists, TDC staff, and public outreach projects. Residents will work toward a cumulative exhibition at The Contemporary in the summer of 2023.
Kasmira Cade Seymour
Kasmira Cade Seymour is an artist comfortable in many mediums, an art educator, independent curator, and a published poet. Her artwork is bright, colorful, and thought provoking. It speaks to common human experiences we have. Kasmira was born in Philadelphia and raised in Southern New Jersey. She currently resides in Wilmington, Delaware.
Alejandro Danilo Leal
Alejandro Danilo Leal was born in Quilpué, Chile and immigrated to the United States when he was 2 years old. He grew up across the river from New York City in Weehawken, New Jersey and now makes his home in Wilmington, Delaware. His formal art training came from the Art Students League of New York, where he began to experiment by mixing both digital and classical approaches to figure drawing and was awarded the Nessa Cohen Grant in 2010. He has studied with various well known painters including Nelson Shanks, Burt Silverman, and primarily with Costa Vavagiakis and David Jon Kassan.
Shefon N. Taylor
Shefon N. Taylor (b. 1988, Wilmington, DE) is an artist called by the secret realms of the archive. At the heart of her artistic practice is a profound curiosity with notions of rememory, the intimate pursuit of belonging, and the ways absence presences in the archive to shape interiority.
John Webb
John Webb graduated in 2013 with a BFA in painting and drawing from East Carolina University. While studying at ECU he also explored photography, printmaking, sculpture, illustration, and ceramics. For his senior show he developed an imaginative narrative called "plight." In exploring different mediums John found a love for ceramics and created a ceramic installation to add a three dimensional element to his exhibition. Subsequently, in 2014 he relocated to Landenberg, PA and created additional work for his plight series and in 2015 got the opportunity to show his linear narrative and ceramic installation at the Chris White Gallery in Wilmington, DE.
2021-22 ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE RECIPIENTS
Artist-in-Residence: Nicholas Calaway
Nicholas Calaway engages with inert sculptural material and the exploration and development of form through drawing on paper. Developing the ideation with written notations of personal thoughts, the sculptural material is shaped through addition or subtraction from the form. The drawing process allows for a subconscious tap into the arena of memory, nostalgia, and experience - a place which welcomes the final stages of discovering the anthropomorphic form as a single physical, symbolic realization.
Artist-in-Residence: Stephanie Boateng
Stephanie Boateng is a student at the University of Delaware studying Organizational and Community Leadership with a minor in Art. Boateng’s 3D painted portraits are emotional beings - the smiles are almost contagious, filling one's soul with joy. Boateng focuses on happy black women, expressing their beauty through materials that represent happiness such as glitter, rhinestones, flowers, butterflies, and bright colors. The 3D elements speak to the viewer, allowing for an interaction in a very personal way.
Creative-in-Residence: The Collective
The Collective consists of three Wilmington, DE artists Shakira Hunt, Ty Collins, and Hashim Ahmad / 7God, who focus on the production of digital media and visual art with the goal of amplifying and supporting the advancement of artists, specifically black voices through visual art, education, and community. The Collective work focuses on mental health, branding development, and education through the mediums of paint, photography, and videography. The work and experiences of these three artists as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) illustrate and construct narratives that challenge America’s status quo such as (classism, gender, and race).
